Today's 26 November Major Events in History

Photo for the article Today's 26 November Major Events

579 Pelagius II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
783 Asturian queen Adosinda was put in the monastery of San Juan de Pravia, where she lived out the rest of her life, to prevent her kin from retaking the throne from Mauregatus.

Vlad Reclaims Wallachia

1476 Vlad the Impaler defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Báthory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time

1580 French Huguenots and Roman Catholics sign a peace treaty

Peace of Westphalia

1648 Pope Innocent X condemns Peace of Westphalia; the treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War recognising Dutch Republic's Independence and Catholic and Lutherans as equal

1688 Duke of Savoy signs on to the League of Augsburg, opposing France

Louis XIV Goes to War

1688 French King Louis XIV declares war on Netherlands

James II Retreats to London

1688 King James II arrives back in London after abandoning his military headquarters at Salisbury. He receives news that his daughter, Princess Anne, a staunch Protestant, has defected to the rebel side, lamenting, "God help me! Even my own children have forsaken me."

1716 A lion is tamed and exhibited for the first time in the US by Captain Arthur Savage at his house on Brattle Street, in Boston, Massachusetts
1741 French, Bavarian, and Saxon armies occupy Prague
1764 France bans Jesuit enorde

Cook Reaches Maui

1778 British explorer Captain James Cook is the first European to visit Maui in the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii)

1784 Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States established
1789 First national Thanksgiving in the US

1791 First US cabinet meeting is held at George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph attend.

1793 Republican calendar replaces Gregorian calendar in France

1805 Official opening of Thomas Telford's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the longest aqueduct in the UK and the highest canal aqueduct in the world, carrying the Llangollen Canal 126 feet above the River Dee
1825 Kappa Alpha fraternity is established at Union College in Schenectady, New York; thought to be the oldest continuously maintained collegiate society in US
1832 First streetcar railway in America starts operating in New York City with a 12-cent fare
1835 HMS Beagle leaves Tahiti for New Zealand
1842 The University of Notre Dame is founded
1847 Alfred de Mussets "Un Caprice" premieres in Paris

A Tale of Two Cities

1859 Last weekly installment of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is published in literary periodical "All the Year Round"

1861 West Virginia created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virginia
1863 -Dec 2] Mine Run campaign, VA
1864 Kilpatrick's 3rd Cavalry Division partially burns a wooden railroad bridge north of Waynesboro, Georgia, before being driven off by Joseph Wheeler's troops

Alice in Wonderland

1865 "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll is published in America

1865 Battle of Papudo: The Spanish navy engages a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet north of Valparaiso, Chile
1867 Refrigerated railroad car patented by JB Sutherland of Detroit, a key step in the history of long-distance transportation of perishable goods
1894 King Lafia "Absalamu" of Nikki signs accord with France
1895 Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association forms
1896 1st large indoor football game, University of Chicago beats University of Michigan 7-6
1896 Amos Alonzo Stagg of University of Chicago creates American football huddle
1898 -27) Snow and ice storm over US kills 455
1898 SS Portland “The Titanic of New England” leaves for Cape Cod, shipwrecked off Cape Ann, all 192 on board killed
1901 Italy and Britain sign an agreement fixing the frontier between their colonies of Eritrea and Sudan in East Africa
1909 Sigma Alpha Mu is founded at the City College of New York by eight young Jewish men
1913 Phi Sigma Sigma is founded at Hunter College in New York City
1913 Russian kingdom forbids Polish congregation of speakers
1914 Battleship HMS Bulwark explodes at Sheerness Harbour, England, 788 die

Business of Neutrality

1916 Addressing the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, US President Woodrow Wilson declares that 'The business of neutrality is over. The nature of modern war leaves no state untouched'

1916 Greece declares war on Germany
1917 NHL forms with the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and a new Toronto franchise (later the Arenas) as the National Hockey Association disbands
1917 The new government of Russia offers an armistice to Germany and Austria-Hungary
1918 The Podgorica Assembly votes for "union of the people", declaring assimilation into the Kingdom of Serbia
1921 Danish composer Rued Langgaard's "Music of the Spheres" (Sfærernes Musik) premieres at Konzerthaus in Karlsruhe, Germany; it is not performed in Denmark until 1969

1922 English archaeologist Howard Carter opens Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb in Egypt

1922 First successful Technicolor movie, "The Toll of the Sea," premieres at the Rialto Theatre in New York City
1924 Mongolian People's Republic is proclaimed
1925 Netherlands & Germany sign trade agreement
1928 Philip Barry's play "Holiday" premieres in New York City
1933 Camille Chautemps becomes French premier for the second time
1934 Turkish parliament bestows President Mustafa Kemal with the surname Atatürk, meaning 'Father of the Turks' as part of the country's modernization effort
1939 Four Soviet soldiers are killed on the Finnish-Russian border
1940 Leidse students strike
1940 Nazi Germany began walling off the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw

Riggs and Kovacs Turn Pro

1941 Amateur American tennis stars Bobby Riggs and Frank Kovacs turn professional after being suspended by the US Lawn Tennis Association for undisclosed financial gain

1941 British troops conquer Belhamed, Sidi Rezegh and El Duda
1941 General Alan Cunningham relieved of command of British 8th Army in North Africa

1941 Japan's naval carrier force departs its bases and moves east toward Pearl Harbor

1941 Lebanon independence first proclaimed by France

Casablanca

1942 "Casablanca," directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres at Hollywood Theater, NYC (Academy Award for Best Picture 1943)

1942 Anti-fascist Council for National Liberation (AVNOJ) forms

1944 First Allied Marines move into Antwerp Harbor

Greatest Jazz Session Ever

1945 Charlie "Bird" Parker leads a recording session with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis for the Savoy label, marketed as the "greatest jazz session ever"

1945 During snow storm, school bus crashes, kills 15 (Washington)

First Polaroid Camera

1948 The first Polaroid camera, the Land Camera model 95, sells for $89.75 in Boston at the Jordan Marsh department store and becomes the prototype for all Polaroid Land cameras for the next 15 years

1949 The Constituent Assembly of India formally adopts a new constitution
1950 China enters Korean conflict, sends troops across Yalu River
1952 The first 3D feature film "Bwana Devil," directed by Arch Oboler, premieres in Los Angeles, advertised as "The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms!"
1953 KBOI (now KBCI) TV channel 2 in Boise, ID (CBS) begins broadcasting
1953 WJHL TV channel 11 in Johnson City, TN (CBS) begins broadcasting
1953 Yamada Koun, leader of Sanbo Kyodan line of Zen, found 1st awakening
1954 Test Cricket debut of Colin Cowdrey v Australia at Gabba
1955 Emergency crisis proclaimed in Cyprus
1956 American weightlifter Charles Vinci wins bantamweight gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics with world-record 3-lift (snatch, clean & jerk, overhead press) total of 342.5 kilograms

Cuthbert Wins 100m Gold

1956 Australian sprinter Betty Cuthbert wins the coveted 100m gold medal in 11.5 at the Melbourne Olympics; takes sprint double winning 200m final four days later

1956 Egil Danielsen of Norway sets a new world record throw of 85.71 m to win the men's javelin gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics
1956 TV game show "The Price Is Right", hosted by Bill Cullen, debuts on NBC
1956 USSR coxless pairs scull rower Viktor Ivanov wins an Olympic silver medal; in his excitement, he drops his medal, which sinks in Lake Wendouree (Victoria, Australia) and is later recovered by a local teenager
1957 WCVB TV channel 5 in Boston, MA (ABC) begins broadcasting
1960 Minneapolis-St Paul baseball club takes the name Twins
1961 For 2nd time in his career, St Louis' Jerry Norton has 4 interceptions
1961 Pro Baseball Rules Committee votes 8-1 against legalizing the spitball
1962 Caribbean Air Transport Me NV (CLTM Airlines) forms

Please Please Me

1962 The Beatles re-record "Please Please Me" at a faster tempo, based on producer George Martin's suggestion

1962 The Beatles record "Ask Me Why" at EMI Studio, London
1963 29th Heisman Trophy Award: Roger Staubach, Navy (QB)
1963 Cincinnati Reds second baseman Pete Rose wins NL Rookie of Year
1963 Explorer 18 spacecraft launched by NASA
1965 Dodgers second baseman Jim Lefebvre is voted NL Rookie of Year

Astérix Satellite

1965 France launches its first satellite, the 92 lb (42 kg) A-1 capsule, and names it Astérix after the popular French comic character

1966 1st major tidal power plant opens at Rance estuary, France
1967 Browns' Carl Ward sets club record with a 104-yd kickoff return
1967 Cloud burst over Lisbon kills about 450

1968 Rock band Cream gives "final" concert at Royal Albert Hall, London, England - but re-unites briefly for a short tour in 2005
1969 35th Heisman Trophy Award: Steve Owens, Oklahoma (RB)

Lottery for Selective Service

1969 Lottery for Selective Service draftees bill signed by US President Richard Nixon

1970 In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) of rain falls in a single minute, the heaviest recorded rainfall in history [1]
1972 Bomb explosion at the Film Centre Cinema, in O’Connell Bridge House in Dublin, Ireland
1972 NFL NY Giant placekicker Péte Gogolák scores team record 8 PAT (points after touchdown) in 62-10 win over Philadelphia Eagles at Yankee Stadium, NYC
1973 Nixon's personal secretary Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of 18½ minute gap in a key Watergate tape
1974 Approximately 140 die when suspension bridge collapses in Nepal
1974 Greenidge scores 107 in 2nd innings of Test Cricket debut v India
1975 Bobby Orr plays his last game for the Boston Bruins
1975 France performs nuclear test at Fangataufa Island
1975 US Federal jury finds Lynette Fromme guilty of attempted assassination
1975 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

Anarchy In The UK

1976 British punk rockers Sex Pistols release their debut single "Anarchy In The UK"

1976 East Germany strips singer-songwriter and poet Wolf Biermann of his citizenship while he tours West Germany

Brandt Leads Socialists

1976 Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt is elected chairman of the Socialist International (1976-92)

1977 'Vrillon', claiming to be the representative of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', takes over Britain's Southern Television for six minutes at 5:12 PM.
1978 10 die as fire erupts at Holiday Inn in Rochester, NY
1978 1st lesbian themed TV movie - "A Question of Love"
1978 Christina Crawford autobiography "Mommie Dearest" reaches best-seller status
1979 Intl Olympic Committee votes to readmit China after 21 years
1979 Twins John Castino & Jays Alfredo Griffin tie for AL Rookie of Year
1980 Columbia mated to SRBs & external tank at Vehicle Assembly Building
1982 Clyde King named New York Yankee manager
1982 Howard Cossell calls his last fight after being disgusted by Larry Holmes-Tex Cobb mismatch
1983 £26 million worth of gold, diamonds, and cash is stolen from the Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, London, in one of the world's greatest robberies
1984 After 518 goals and 14 years with the Montreal Canadiens, Guy LaFleur retires abruptly
1984 John W Mercom Jr announces New Orleans Saints are up for sale for $75 million
1984 US & Iraq re-establish diplomatic relations
1985 23rd NASA Space Shuttle Mission (61-B): Atlantis 2 launches
1985 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
1985 Random House buys former US President Richard Nixon's memoirs for $3,000,000
1986 Trial begins in Israel for John Demjanjuk, accused of being Nazi prison guard "Ivan the Terrible" at Treblinka concentration camp
1988 Alexander Volkov, Sergei Krikalev & Jean-Loup Chretien launch
1988 Pioneer 6's closest approach to Earth since 1965 launch (1.87 M km)
1989 Comores coup under Bob Benard

V. P. Singh Defeats Rajiv Gandhi

1989 India's Congress Party led by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi loses the general election to an opposition front led by V. P. Singh

1989 Luis Alberto Lacalle wins Uruguayan presidential election
1989 Rafael Callejas installed as president of Honduras
1990 Buffalo Bills become the sixth first-place NFL team to lose on the same weekend
1990 Matsushita purchases MCA for $6.6 billion

1990 Premier Mazowiecki of Poland resigns
1990 US proposes addition to UN resolution that would require Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait by January 1
1991 Condoms are handed out to thousands of NY High School students
1992 British geneticist Alec Jeffreys who developed widely-used techniques for DNA fingerprinting, becomes honorary freeman of the city of Leicester

Marino Sets NFL Record

1995 Dolphins QB Dan Marino sets NFL record with 343rd touchdown pass

1995 New Zealand scores 348 for 8 in 49 overs in an ODI against India in Nagpur
1996 Baseball owners approve interleague play, 26-4
1997 Wash Capitals final game at USAir Arena, retire Rod Langway's #5

Blair Addresses Irish Parliament

1998 Tony Blair is the first British Prime Minister to address the parliament of the Republic of Ireland

1999 Steve Yzerman scores his 600th career goal
2003 India accepts Pakistan's offer of a ceasefire in Kashmir
2003 Supersonic airplane the Concorde makes its last ever flight, returning to Bristol, England
2004 Male Poʻouli bird dies of avian malaria at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii, before it can breed, rendering the species in all probability extinct
2004 Ruzhou School massacre: Yan Yanming stabs and kills eight boys and seriously wounds another four in a school dormitory in Ruzhou, China
2006 The last international rugby match before demolition of Dublin's famous Lansdowne Road Stadium is Ireland's 61-17 win over the Pacific Islanders

Like You'll Never See Me Again

2007 "Like You'll Never See Me Again" single released by Alicia Keys (NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Music Video, Outstanding Song 2008, Billboard Song of the Year 2008)

2008 Ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 250 people in Mumbai, India

2011 NATO forces in Afghanistan attack a Pakistani checkpoint in a friendly fire incident, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others
2012 10 children are killed and 15 people are injured after a Syrian government Jet drops a cluster bomb on a playground
2012 The cost of Hurricane Sandy to New York is announced to be $32 Billion
2013 Due to a street tirade captured on video, Alec Baldwin's show "Up Late with Alec Baldwin" is cancelled after only five episodes
2015 UK nonprofit Raspberry Pi releases its $5 Zero computer, with a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM; it sells out in a day
2017 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finishes second in season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit to claim his 4th F1 World Drivers Championship; wins title by 46 points from Sebastian Vettel
2017 Factory explosion in Chinese port city Ningbo kills at least two, injuries 30, flattens buildings
2017 Presidential elections held in Honduras with allegations of electoral fraud and resulting violent protests
2018 Australian surfer Stephanie Gilmore is handed her record equalling 7th world title as American contender Lakey Peterson is a shock 2nd round elimination at the season-ending Maui Pro in Hawaii
2018 Chinese scientist He Jiankui claims to have produced the first genetically edited baby

2018 First multidrug randomized control trial to treat Ebola started in Democratic Republic of Congo announced by the WHO
2018 General Motors announces it will close five factories in North America, cutting 14,000 jobs
2018 NASA's InSight mission lands on Mars after a 7 month voyage
2018 Third of a species begin dying (23,000) over a two day period, the spectacled flying foxes, unable to survive heatwave of 42 degrees in northern Queensland, Australia
2018 Ukraine declares martial law in areas bordering Russia after Russia seizes three of its naval vessels
2019 6.4 magnitude earthquake centered on Durres strikes Albania, with at least 51 killed and hundreds injured
2020 Turkey gives life sentences to 337 military officers and others involved in 2016 coup
2021 WHO labels COVID-19 variant Omicron a "variant of concern", with its dozens of new mutations, after it emerges in Botswana and South Africa [1]
2022 2,500 people pose naked for photographer Spencer Tunick on Australia's Bondi Beach to raise awareness of skin cancer [1]
2022 Large mudslide after intense rain tears across Italian island of Ischia, killing at least eight people, on an island where 50% of the houses were illegally built [1]
2022 Rare public protests held in various Chinese cities over the governments restrictive COVID-19 policies, after 10 people die in an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang [1]
2023 Booker literary Prize won by Irish writer Paul Lynch for his novel "Prophet Song" [1]

2023 Dutch driver Max Verstappen confirms his third consecutive world F1 drivers championship with his record 19th GP win of the season in Abu Dhabi; his Red Bull team retains constructors title

Musk Visits Israel

2023 Elon Musk visits Israel after Starlink satellite agreement, amid controversy after he liked an antisemitic post on X, prompting widespread criticism and loss of advertisers on X [1]

2023 Sierra Leone declares nationwide curfew after attempted coup when gunmen tried to break into country's largest military barracks in Freetown [1]
2023 Two-day extension to Gaza ceasefire announced by mediating country Qatar, with a fourth set of hostages exchanged by both sides [1]